‘That thing, magos,’ Nayl said. ‘It was an animation process. An energy form that had simply inhabited the dead bones. It was using them as a framework to move around in, to interact with the physical world.’

‘I saw a shimmer on it,’ said Drusher. ‘An aura. Like an afterimage.’

‘Right. So that energy form, it can just soak up kinetic damage from a pump gun, or the high-yield las expended from my weapon.’

‘And manipulate that energy to eat through doors. And people.’

‘Correct.’

‘But a single bullet somehow…?’

‘It wasn’t the bullet,’ said Nayl. ‘It’s what was written on it. Eisenhorn etched it himself and gave me a stash of them. A charm, if you like. Like an amulet. The charm broke the energy field and let the bullet do its damage.’

‘Well, I’ll take your word for that, Master Nayl. It sounds a lot like hocus-pocus nonsense to me.’

‘Me too,’ said Nayl. ‘But if hocus-pocus nonsense works, you go with it.’

‘It sounds like this thing was created,’ said Drusher. ‘I mean artificially manufactured. And let out.’

Nayl rose to his feet.

‘You figured that out, did you?’ he asked.

‘The cold store door was unbolted,’ said Drusher. ‘Macks said so. The thing didn’t eat its way out, and that’s the only way it could have opened the door. So it follows that someone made it and let it out for a reason.’

‘There’s the makings of an investigator in you yet, sir,’ said Nayl.

‘What was the reason?’ asked Drusher.

‘To kill us all,’ said Nayl. ‘That’s my bet. Because maybe we’re getting too close to something. What happened last night could have happened any night in the weeks since we arrived. But it happened last night. So something happened yesterday that took us all a step too close to the truth. And you know what happened yesterday, magos?’

‘No, what?’

‘You got here,’ said Nayl.

‘That’s not a very cheery notion,’ said Drusher.

‘Shall I tell you why I think there’s more to you than meets the eye?’ asked Nayl. ‘Why I think you’ve got that something that marks a good investigator? You don’t ask the stupid questions.’

‘What would they be?’ asked Drusher.

‘Well, since we’ve been talking, you haven’t once asked what it was.’

‘I presumed there wasn’t a word for it,’ said Drusher. ‘Or if there was, it would be part of a concept that was meaningless to me as a man of science.’

‘That’s pretty smart,’ said Nayl. ‘And you haven’t asked who let it out.’

‘Because I think you’d have told me if you knew,’ said Drusher. ‘Or it’s classified, and there’s no point asking in the first place.’